CHAPTER NINETEEN
Behind the Mirror
A little after 11:00 A.M., a heavy bank of charcoal gray clouds passed over Cincinnati from the southwest, very low, and a warm rain started to fall.
“At least it keeps the bugs from flying,” said Molly, as they drove along I-71 toward the Avondale turnoff. All the same, when she turned on the wipers, there were enough splattered cicadas on the windshield to smear it with two semicircles of brown and yellow viscera.
Sissy said, “I wish I could shake off this feeling.”
“What feeling?”
“I don’t know. It’s not what you’d call a premonition. It’s more like ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’ — as if there’s something out of place, and it’s right in front of my nose, but I can’t see it for looking.”
Molly was wearing a black silk headscarf tied around her head pirate fashion, with small silver coins dangling from it. Sissy thought that she looked more like the young Mia Farrow than ever. Sissy herself had dressed in a long-sleeved crimson dress with large red chrysanthemums all over it. She wore long dangly earrings, which Frank had always called her “chandeliers.”
Molly said, “Don’t tell me. You read the cards again before we came out?”
“I was just wanted an update.”
“Okay. And?”
“They’re still saying the same. The warning, the game of hide-and-go-seek. And the blood card, too.”
“No new clues?”
Sissy shook her head. “I’ve never known the cards be so unhelpful. It’s like somebody saying to you, Don’t go out tomorrow, whatever you do, you’ll regret it, but refusing to tell you why.”
They turned off I-71 and made their way toward Riddle Road. It rained harder and harder, with misty spray drifting across the street in front of them. The windshield wipers were flapping furiously from side to side, but they could barely keep up.
As they reached the Woods house, however, the rain abruptly stopped, and by the time Molly had parked her Civic in the driveway, the sun was beginning to shine through the clouds and sparkle on the cedar trees that sheltered the house on either side.
Avondale was a quiet, old-style neighborhood, and 1445 Riddle Road was a solid, old-style house, with three stories and a long veranda that ran all the way across the front. Molly and Sissy climbed the steps to the front door. It was painted dark purple, and there was a brass knocker on it in the shape of a grinning face — a clown, maybe, or a joker.
Molly knocked and the door was opened almost immediately. They were greeted by a thin, nervous-looking woman with a blond bob and short-sleeved black dress, and a young girl clutching a black toy rabbit.
“Mrs. Woods?” Sissy smiled. “I’m Sissy Sawyer. This is my daughter-in-law, Molly.”
“Come on in,” said Mrs. Woods. “And, please, call me Darlene.”
She led the way into a large living room furnished with two antique sofas and four spoon-back chairs. On the left-hand side of the room there was a handsome antique fireplace with fluted columns and a wide gilt-framed mirror hanging above it. On the right-hand side there was a dark mahogany sideboard with a collection of nineteenth-century silver — jugs and candle-sticks and decorated tankards.
Between the sofas there was a low glass-topped table with magazines and antique crystal paperweights on it, as well as a bronze statuette of a leaping horse. But it was a small pedestal underneath the window that caught Sissy’s attention. It was draped in a black velvet cloth, and on it stood a photograph in a silver frame of a smiling, broad-featured man with a lick of brown hair across his forehead.
All around the photograph tiny seashells had been arranged in flower patterns, as well as multicolored candies and glass beads — the tributes paid by two small girls to their murdered father.
“I don’t really know how much I can help you,” said Darlene.
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Sissy told her. “And we can help you.” She looked around the living room, trying to sense any presence of the late George Woods. It wasn’t easy, because she could feel all of the hundreds of people who had lived here since the house was built. She could almost hear them shouting and laughing and singing as the years had flickered by — birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and weddings. She could also feel the stillness of death.
“Amanda,” said Darlene. “Why don’t you take Floppy upstairs to your room? I have to talk to these ladies for a while.”
“May I have a cookie?” asked Amanda.
“Sure you can, sweetie. But just one.”
“May Floppy have a cookie, too?”
Darlene shook her head. “Floppy can share yours. It’s going to be lunchtime soon.”
When Amanda had gone, Darlene said, “Please. do sit down. I have to tell you that I was kind of knocked off balance when you called me. You know — what you said to me about talking to George.”
“I’m not a con artist, Darlene,” Sissy told her. “I’ve been holding séances ever since I first discovered that I could contact people who have gone beyond. I’ve never asked for money or any kind of recompense, and I never will.”
“You said that you and — Molly, is it? — you said that you were working with the Cincinnati police.”
“I’m a forensic sketch artist,” Molly told her. “After a crime’s been committed, I interview witnesses, and then I try to draw a likeness of the person who committed it.”
“I understand,” Darlene nodded. “I’ve seen people doing that on CSI. But why do you need to talk to George?”
Molly said, “There was only one witness to George’s murder, and that was a young girl who was also stabbed, so she was in pretty deep shock. Red Mask struck a second time — at least we believe it was him. But again there was only one witness, and this witness had already seen my picture of Red Mask on TV, so his recollection could well have been compromised. Witnesses bend over backward to be helpful, but sometimes they’re too helpful, if you see what I mean. They try to tell you what they think you want to hear, instead of what they actually saw.”
“The more witnesses we can talk to, the more accurate Molly’s picture will be,” said Sissy. “That’s why we need to contact George.”
“Is it really possible?” asked Darlene. “My mother used to go to a medium to talk to her older sister. She said she had long conversations with her, but I can’t say that I ever completely believed her. I thought it was no more than wishful thinking.”
Sissy took hold of Darlene’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It is possible, for sure. But let me say this: if it upsets you in any way at all, Molly and I will just get up and go, and you won’t have to see us ever again.”
“Will I be able to hear him?”
Sissy nodded. “More than likely. But you have to realize that not all gone-beyonders want to talk to the people that they’ve left behind — not directly. They’re usually anxious to spare them any more grief. It’s not exactly an easy experience for them, either, to see everything they lost when they passed over, and to talk to a loved one they’ll never be able to hold in their arms again.”
Darlene looked across at the photograph of her late husband on the pedestal by the window. “All right,” she said, at last. “What do we have to do? Hold hands or something?”
Sissy said, “You can, if you think that it will help you to concentrate. But it isn’t necessary. If George is here, if he’s able and willing to talk to us, then he will. All you need to do is to think of him — how you best remember him. Try to remember what he looked like. Try to remember what he felt like. Imagine he’s still with you. Imagine he’s still alive.”